Great Characters

4 Tips for Writing Quirky Characters - Writer's Digest (writersdigest.com)

5 Tips for Breathing Life Into Fictionalized "Real-Life" Characters - Writer's Digest (writersdigest.com)

5 Things Writers Should Know About Flight Attendants - Writer's Digest (writersdigest.com)

Songwriting Idea

 Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot,

Before the days of Dylan, or the dawn of Camelot.

There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me,

For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born,

Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.

We learned to gut a muffler, we washed our hair at dawn,

We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on the lawn.

We longed for love and romance and waited for our Prince,

And Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one's seen him since.

We danced to 'Little Darlin,' and sang to 'Stagger Lee'

And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Only girls wore earrings then, and three was one too many,

And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see

A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,

And when they made a movie, they never made it twice.

We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,

Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,

And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T,

And Oprah couldn't talk yet, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had our share of heroes, we never thought they'd go,

At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,

And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We'd never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be Dead,

And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson and Zeppelins were not Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkeys lived in trees,

Madonna was Mary in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We'd never heard of microwaves or telephones in cars,

And babies might be bottle-fed, but they were not grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and 'gay' meant fancy-free,

And dorms were never co-ed in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We hadn't seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,

And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.

And hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,

And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Buick's came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,

And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,

And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had no Crest with fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,

We all wore superstructure bras, designed by Howard Hughes

We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea

Or prime-time ads for personal things in the Land That Made Me, Me.

There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,

And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was thirty-five and old was forty-three,

And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.

But all things have a season, or so we've heard them say,

And now instead of Maybelline, we swear by Retin-A.

They send us invitations to join AARP,

We've come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me, Me.

So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,

And wonder why they're using smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children of the way it used to be,

Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me, Me.

 

For Marriage story

 What is marriage with a narcissist like?

So much lonelier than being single….

My friend has said over and over again that she had never felt so lonely as when he (diagnosed) was around her.

She just could not connect with him in any meaningful or genuine way. She tried very hard to do so but she could not get through. He was like a brick wall.

He didn’t really want a partner anyway, so he disappeared a lot. He didn’t want to be around her and she felt that to her core. It seemed like he wanted more of a mommy than a partner and then he seemed to hate her for that. He would actually try to bother her or piss her off so that he had a reason to storm off in a huff thus being able to do whatever he wanted without her. He planned it and liked it that way.

She wondered many times why they were still married anymore.

She tried to talk to him about fixing things and investing in their relationship and he told her to stop making problems where there were none and to stop being so emotional.

Everything was her fault if she tried to try to talk to him. He did not want to hear it. He said that people shouldn’t have to work at being together.

Everything with him was high conflict and difficult. Everything was a silent argument.

Life with him became just a long hard slog.

Being married to a cluster B person for her was like a cold and lonely deep dark abyss that eventually she had to climb out of all alone.

Notes from old journals

 Literary: Events serve and amplify character

Genre: Character serves the event.

1-14-95

Workshop in Tucson: Non-fiction is easier to sell. Short stories are getting shorter